You Know That Can't Be Bad

I often write about The Beatles, so I guess one more post won't hurt.

The band is a classic these days, and their songs seem to have stood the test of time.  So it's always fun to look at the original reaction by the establishment, which just didn't get it.  What fascinates me most is how they don't even bother to discuss the music in any detail, so certain are they it's trash.

The joke's on them.  So here, on April Fools' Day, from an article I found in the L.A. Times, are some of the reactions to Beatlemania that were surging through America in 1964.

The New York Times

The Beatles' vocal quality can be described as hoarsely incoherent, with the minimal enunciation necessary to communicate the schematic texts.

L. A. Times

Not even their mothers would claim that they sing well.

William F. Buckley in the Boston Globe

They are so unbelievably horrible, so appallingly unmusical, so dogmatically insensitive to the magic of the art that they qualify as crowned heads of anti-music, even as the imposter popes went down in history as "anti-popes."

Others at the Boston Globe

They...sound like a group of disorganized amateurs whose voices seem to be fighting each other rather than blending.

[T]eenagers, go ahead and enjoy your Beatlemania.  It won't be fatal and will give you a lot of laughs a few years hence when you find one of their old records or come across a picture of Ringo in a crew cut.

Newsweek

Musically they are a near disaster, guitars and drums slamming out a merciless beat that does away with secondary rhythms, harmony and melody....It is also hard to imagine any other field in which they could apply their talents, and so the odds are that they will fade away, as most adults confidently predict.

Washington Post

They have a commonplace, rather dull act that hardly seems to merit mentioning, yet people hereabouts have mentioned scarcely anything else for a couple of days.

Chicago Tribune

The Beatles must be a huge joke, a wacky gag, a gigantic put-on.